Victims of Science II
[FACT: "Everything had gone black. For an instant, he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only one way to save himself. He must interpose another human being, the body of another human being, between himself and the rats." - 1984]
Nathan's eyes shot open, and he began panting heavily. Looking around, he realized his body had collapsed behind the desk.
[...Wasn't I in front of the desk...?]
(No, you were here the entire time. I checked.)
[Wheatley! Oh, wonderful.]
(Hello.)
[...Are you alright?]
(Just...running a scan. Preoccupied.)
Nathan sat up slowly, moving the desk chair out of his way as he slowly got back up. His entire body was frigid stiff, and no part of it seemed to want to leave the floor, making what was a simple task in theory something he could barely summon the strength to accomplish.
(My apologies.)
[What are you apologizing for? Were you making my body lock up just then?]
(Well, it's a general apology. You wouldn't be on the floor if I hadn't had a freeze-up and a hard reset as I did.)
Nathan felt a twinge of suspicious behavior, but he bottled it.
[...Wheatley.]
(Yes?)
[How is that scan coming along?]
(Fine. No worries. Everything is under control. Just...do what you want to do.)
Oh, he wasn't trying to avoid the truth...he was. Nathan mentally scowled.
[Wheatley, every time you dodge me like this, you get all short circuited. What is the matter?]
(Nothing! Nothing. Please stop rattling me up.)
[Can I help you with something?]
(No. It's not something that can be just...fixed. But I'm fine. I'll give a holler if something's amiss.)
[Well, what if I can help you sense your problem? You don't know, do you?]
(I'm not disabled; I can handle my own problems.)
[...Wheatley.]
Nathan sighed deeply, looking around. Upon spotting a large pile of zip drive disks, a light bulb went off in his brain.
[Fine. You sulk and finish scanning. I have an idea.]
(What...?)
Nathan grabbed the pile and pulled it over, shoving the top disk into the still-operating console. After checking the disk and finding it was empty, he went back to the sub-folder containing all the core memory files and grabbed the first batch, dragging it to the empty disk's folder.
(What are you...?)
After it finished, he removed the disk and slipped in another one. A few unimportant memos. He deleted them then copied over the second file. He looked for a marker and began labelling the filled disks with the names of the subfolders they contained, setting them to the side as grabbed a third disk and checked it.
Empty as well. Not for long; he put the third memory subfolder onto it.
[Are all these disks blank...? That would be nothing short of a miracle right now...]
(You're...backing them all up?)
[They're coming with us. All of these people suffered because of the work I work we all did in this very room. They didn't get a proper send-off. When we get out, I'm putting them somewhere safe. Probably will bury them. They deserve a proper burial. They don't deserve to be popsicles.]
Nathan had turned red in the cheeks, his eyes becoming waterlogged.
(You humans and your need to ceremoniously honor the dead. Death has no need for dignity; you just carry on with your business.)
[Please don't. Not right now. Go back to scanning.]
Nathan wiped his eyes and sniffled up a stream of nasal fluids as he continued, going through all of the zip drives and fitting every memory sub-folder onto its own disk and labelling them. He then got out of the chair, collected up the disks, and placed them in his bag.
[I wonder if the technology of the outside world has improved past the point of zip drives, to where nobody has the ability to view these on the outside. We were above the top of the line in the 80's...but where are we now? I mean, we had laser-read disks, hard floppy squares with ribbons like these zip drives...I wonder what they're using for file storage. Maybe they're already downloading things straight into their minds using some advanced form of our Personality Core Genetic Profile Extractor! Oh, that would be interesting...]
(That's absurd, but plausible. Who knows how long you've been frozen? It's really seemed like an eternity for me rolling about as a core, and I would certainly give you a more accurate reading of the current date besides "more than a year since I almost blew up the facility" if I could access my core's clock function. Doubt it'd work in the condition I was in, but I'd at least try. Honestly, I had accessed the time right before I crashed back down into this facility, but I've completely forgotten what it was. Something in May or June...something. Gah. Sorry I'm not more helpful.)
[There's no need to overthink it. Just...let's go. I cannot stand being in this room any longer.]
(Let's.)
Nathan pulled his Longfall Boots back on, organizing his bag's contents before securing it and slinging it over his shoulder.
[Would you like to see my workstation?]
(Oh! Yes, please.)
[I'll take us there, then.]
The walk to Nathan's workstation was silent, Wheatley deep in thought and Nathan just making his way. As they made their way past Nathan's personal office, a shiver ran down his spine.
"They're all on the list, Nate. I'm so sorry…"
(Wait. What?)
Nathan stopped on a dime, a flicker of light to his left drawing his attention. Wheatley stood staring at him in confusion, now dressed in the suit jacket attire from the workshop, the extended scar lines from Elysium still stretched across his face.
"They?" Wheatley asked. "Not 'we'? That was Girard's voice, yes? They were on that list…but he's not talking about himself and your colleagues…is he?"
Nathan looked at the broken pane of glass of his office once more. "He's not."
"May I ask…who?"
Nathan closed his eyes and let the memory flicker alive as he opened them. Like life-sized pillars of hard light, the figures of Nathan and Girard shone and solidified, frozen in the middle of the memory.
Nathan shuddered, pained by the memory, but Wheatley wanted to know. He had to.
"Nate, I saw the list. All our volunteers are on there. We're in trouble. Who are we-" Girard seemed more frantic now than he had ever been. His left leg bounced in a frantic antsy-ness as he rapidly spit out his terror-inducing information.
"You did your best, Girard. Go to bed. Or at least take your medication. How long has it been since you took it?"
"At least since yesterday. I've been freaking out, skipped my morning dose, and said to hell with it with the rest of 'em today."
"Go to your dorm, take your medication, make yourself a pot of lavender or chamomile tea, and just relax. I'll handle everything."
"No! No, I have an idea! But…someplace more private? The workshop later?"
"…How much later?"
"I don't know. Uh…soon? I gotta get stuff together."
"What exactly is your plan?"
"Workstation…uh…thirty minutes? Yeah, that's enough time. No, no, wait. Gotta get a few other things. An hour. Hour's fine with you, right?"
"If you promise that getting in a dose of your medication is part of the itinerary; in fact, if it's not the first thing you do, I don't care what you have planned. You're a wreck."
"I'm a wreck? I didn't throw a chair through my office wall." Girard appeared to regret his words the second he said them, and gave a soft squeak of worry. "Sorry. Too late. No meds. No filter right now."
"Just…please. Calm yourself and we can talk about this in an hour in the workstation."
Girard swooped forward, catching Nathan in a tight and quick hug before running off towards the dormitory wing.
The images flickered and faded to nothing, leaving only Nathan and Wheatley standing there.
"What was his plan?"
Nathan looked down. "Remind me when we get to the workstation."
"I will. Shall we continue?"
"Please." Nathan, his whole body seemingly swallowed by a wave of emotional discomfort, began sauntering to the workstation.
Wheatley wished he could give Nathan a consoling embrace. When Girard gave him one, it always cheered him up…
"Nathan?"
"What?"
"You know you don't have to verbally communicate to me. In fact, it would be detrimental to do so, in the case of us trading sensitive information that may or may not be useful to...um, Her. I can still hear you if you think your responses."
[Still afraid to refer to her as GLaDOS?]
"First point, heard you perfectly. Secondly, not 'afraid' so much as...well, maybe afraid. No, more along the lines of...no, it's fear, but a rational fear. I am not just being terrified just to be terrified. Just a note."
Nathan sighed.
He stopped just short of the workstation; it looked much larger than Henry's workstation by the placement of the doors leading in and surrounding the room.
[Are you ready to see your real birth place?]
"I'm ecstatic. Please, let's not dawdle!"
Nathan smiled and opened the door.
Wheatley marveled at the sights; numerous pristine workstations with only the minutest layers of dust, tools lined up against walls in order, materials stacked in labelled crates, the floor devoid of papers and only suffering debris from whatever aftershock of the madness elsewhere had created, and a back room for resting, its door closed.
Nathan's eyes were focused at the main centerpiece of the room; the Personality Core Genetic Profile Extractor, and the twisted hunk of metal and wires that sat in the core cradle. As Wheatley took notice of the nauseated horror running through Nathan's body, he too found himself focusing on the machine.
"Is that...?"
[Oh God...]
His hands shook as he approached it, and only one thought seemed to cross Wheatley's mind.
"It's so...small...and insignificant..."
[My creation...]
"Was I only that big? The bloody cubes are larger than I was!"
[Look at what she did to you...]
Nathan reached out and gingerly picked up the wrecked core, ever so daintily moving it about to inspect it.
"Well, she did try to crush me with grabbing pincers, and she tossed me in some sort of fluid to short me out, but the hunk of rock in my back port is a meteor...I think...was it really that small? It felt like it was trying to split me in half!"
[The pinnacle of my entire professional career's work...nothing but a hunk of scrap metal with wires sticking out of it...]
"...This is a strange out of body experience for me...I wonder if I should recite that scene..."
[...What? What scene?]
Wheatley took momentary control and held the core out with his right hand, then cleared Nathan's throat and began to recite.
"Alas, poor Wheatley! I knew him, Nathan: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap-fallen?"
(I'm sorry, but it sounds so terribly awkward coming out your mouth, given the regional dialects being different and all.)
Nathan couldn't help but crack a smile at the hollow core shell as Wheatley shifted control, and a small spark of amusement filled him. Wheatley was trying to cheer him up.
The laughter that dared to strangle him if contained burst out into a body-shaking rattle of chuckles, making tears of joy, rather than sorrow, slide their way out from between his eyelids.
He was expecting Wheatley to query why he was laughing, to some extent, but Wheatley's quietness shook him a bit, and he too fell silent, setting the core back down into the cradle as softly as possible.
[Well...it's to be expected. You went through a lot before you made it back to me...]
Nathan sighed, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and sniffling up fluids once more.
Nathan looked around, surveying the area. The thin layer of dust made it look as if the room had been sealed like a mausoleum. The eerie lack of background noise outside of the Longfall Boots clinking against the floor as he walked around, the general lack of people...it was starting to bother him.
The visual manifestation of Wheatley stepped in front of him, snapping him out of his reverie. He realized then that Wheatley looked near perfectly like himself; the only major difference being that Wheatley possessed blue hair that sat raggedly around his head with no particular style to it rather than his own dark auburn that he typically and meticulously combed to the right. Besides that and the circuit patterned scar lines, they could have passed for mirror images.
It only made sense; all the other cores seemed to physically resemble their human selves in Elysium, and Wheatley was, after all, just him.
"…Nathan?"
[Yes?]
"And please tell me if I am stepping on a taboo question..."
[Just ask.]
"Alright. What...what is death like? Not that I…have any real reason to ask or anything, I'm just asking out of curiosity. I know what it's like to be shut down with no idea when someone will turn you back on, but…well…is it like that with humans, too? Only, well, you know nobody's going to turn you back on. Because you're dead."
[Well, that's something I don't know. No human knows what is coming at the end. It could be nothing but a great abyss, or perhaps it could be similar to something humans have written about in just about every religious text. A big white staircase to heaven or a big drop into the fiery pits of hell after having your soul judged by the religion's diety or whatnot.
[The Greeks had this whole elaborate setup where the messenger god Hermes would drag a person's soul to the River Styx, and the ferryman of the river, Charon, who wears this spooky cloak and looks like a skeleton, would have you pay coins that your relatives would put on your body when they buried you to travel down to one of a couple of places; Elysium was like their heaven for good people and heroes and whatnot, Tartarus is like their hell for the wicked, and Asphodel is their place for the people who weren't much of either.
I'm not religious myself. If I were a betting man, I would place my chips on the abyss you speak about.]
"Those deity fellows don't sound all that friendly. I hope you're right. Well no, I take that back. That Charon fellow sounds like a nice chap; just give him some dosh your mates left on your corpse and he carts you down the river on his boat to where you're supposed to go. It's not like they tell you where you're going when you die, right? So how would you know if this bloke didn't take you?
"What if they were waiting for you in Elysium, and they were going to throw you a party, with cake and everything, and you went to Asphodel because you figured, 'Ah, I did some nasty things in my life like bossing around and torturing a girl for my own self-gratification, but I taught a horrible monster of a woman a simple, if apparently fleeting, lesson in humbleness via a tuber and some scrap electronics and I didn't kill anyone out of sheer ignorance! So they're probably putting me here in Asphodel, where the okay people go!' And then you get there and find out you have to sail all the way down to Elysium, so you go all the way there, only to find that everyone left after an hour and your fat cousin ate all the celebration cake.
That bloke sounds like a good mate. Shame he doesn't get medals for that. Did he get medals for it? Like some sort of 'Expert Soul Ferryman' badge?"
Nathan just stood in silence, stunned.
"Right then! This office! Very well-kept..."
While Wheatley's attention seemed to drift out and around the room, Nathan took to staring at the scrap heap that was once Wheatley's core. It was useless now; he couldn't gather any information from it if he tried. However...it could still be used...
"Huh? What...what are you thinking?"
Nathan picked up the core and looked it over; the dents, scrapes, and minor burns were mainly cosmetic with all the parts from inside having been either pulled out, snapped, or hanging out presently, the gears needed some replacing, and there was certainly something wrong with the upper handlebar, but he could fix all of it.
He took the core to a station and, upon noticing that he already had a pair of gloves on from earlier, began working immediately. There seemed to be only one thing that could be salvaged from the junk heap that sat in front of him; the optic light.
By this time, Wheatley had sauntered over, looking interested.
"What are you doing to m…my core?"
Nathan could sense Wheatley's nausea as he tore out burnt out circuit boards and wires. He scoffed at all the poorly soldered extraneous data loop chips and sub-par processors. He held the board up to Wheatley's face.
"Do you see all those extra crap-soldered pieces? That is what they did to you. All those little looping devices, endlessly circulating all those horrid ideas in your tiny little circuits, holding them in and slowing you down. You may not have had the greatest ideas, but they made sure you would never let them go. They made you pay for my indiscretions." He tossed the motherboard like a Frisbee down then length of the room. "Nothing but a useless hunk of technology. They destroyed you because they were angry and jealous morons."
Wheatley stared at the motherboard in horror; Nathan realized he had essentially, and very carelessly, chucked what had been his brain across the room.
[Sorry, Wheatley. Don't worry; this ball doesn't feel anything anymore. You're safe here in my head now, alright?]
"…Yes. I…can you please tell me what you are doing? Enlighten me a bit, mate."
Nathan smirked. What an appropriate choice of words.
[Your optic, its wiring, the optic guard mechanisms, and the rotating gyros are all either still working or can be repaired…I am going to hook it all up to a powerful battery and a switch and use this old core as a floodlight. It can't hurt; there are some places around here that are terribly dark.]
"Sounds like a wonderful plan!"
[I am glad you support it; it was going to be done whether you supported it or not.]
He looked around and began thinking of all the materials he would need. He assessed exactly which pieces were salvageable, then looked around for paper and a working pen.
It was nearly impossible to find either, but he managed after a while. He took to roughly sketching the blueprints of what needed to be collected and compiled, Wheatley staring in awe. He had never watched anyone construct anything with so little to work with; Nathan barely had enough ambient light to see what he was doing.
He wandered about, digging through piles of scrap in the workstation, looking through the list he'd scribbled down. After only finding a few things, he continued on, muttering aloud to himself as he searched.
"Does this light work...?"
He tapped the light switch, and a pair of light panels flickered on. It was barely enough light to illuminate the room, but Nathan found it satisfactory.
Spotting a cart in a corner, he grabbed it and ran out into the hallways, diving from workstation to workstation, digging around for scraps and parts and wires and materials and everything that he needed.
He dove back into his home workstation and pushed the cart to the table with the broken core sitting upon it. He began setting everything down in perfect precision according to what he needed in order of importance then suddenly stopped.
The utter silence around him was too distracting. He needed some ambiance.
He walked over to the station table with a carved-in depiction of the Milky Way and various constellations and opened up the top left drawer. Dozens of zip drive disks labeled 'mix tape' and various dates from the 1980's sat within. He pulled out the one that looked the most used and grabbed a zip drive-compatible audio device and headphones from the right bottom drawer, smiling.
Inserting the disk, he was happy to find the batteries still operated perfectly. He plugged the headphones in and played the first track as he searched the jumpsuit for another pocket.
"Sometimes you're better off dead
There's gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head
You think you're mad, too unstable
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
In a restaurant in a West End town
Call the police, there's a madman around
Running down underground to a dive bar
In a West End town..."
It wasn't his cup of tea, but it was soothing to his nerves as he began to work. He understood exactly why Girard spent hours dancing around the workstation hub to this stuff; he found his right foot tapping in time to the beat as he softly began peeling away the outer core panels.
Wheatley hopped up onto the table and watched intently, studying what Nathan was doing. He had never seen his insides, or even what remained, nor had he ever seen the actual process of someone working on such a device by hand. It was nothing short of marvelous to him, really.
Hours seemed to pass, and the sounds and sights of what was a pile of burnt and dented scraps and wires being transformed to look more like something resembling a functioning Personality Core was nothing sort of a miracle to the former inhabitant of the equally former scrap heap. Nathan had dug out several heavy-duty batteries from Girard's desk, and had even taken to snacking on the gummies using a pair of sanitized tweezers as a sort of reward system as he went along, and before too long, he was ready to test out his design.
"Ready?" Nathan queried, his hand on a switch.
"Please."
With a flick, a bright blue light flooded the area, filling up the entire room with a glow far more intense than the actual installed system.
"AMAZING!" Wheatley exclaimed, looking the core light over. "Even with all the exhaust ports sealed, it runs so well!"
[It doesn't need exhaust ports, Wheatley. It's running on battery power. The only part that can open is this part in the back, and it's insulated. It's just as tightly sealed up and reinforced as my carrying bag. Which reminds me.]
He walked over to Girard's desk and grabbed all of the other zip drive disks. These, along with the now-powered down audio device, its headphones, and a few leftover batteries, were placed gingerly in his bag.
[Well, it's the least I could do; bring his music with us. I'm certain he would want us to relax for a while at some point.]
"Oh! Right! His plan. You told me you would tell me what his plan was."
Nathan sighed, picking up the core light and turning to face the Genetic Profile Extractor.
Like a pair of ghosts, the figures of Girard and himself appeared in a haze. Girard, who was sitting on the device, appeared to be in a more casual attire; indigo fleece lounge slacks with little white polka dots, a plain white teeshirt and a pair of dusty white socks. A silver chain was clearly visible around the sides of his neck; Wheatley hadn't noticed it before due to Girard's more formal attire in past memories. In his lap sat a completed Personality Core with that terribly familiar yellow optic lens.
A look of poorly hidden misery was painted across his face while inaudible words came out of Girard's mouth. The volume of his voice steadily increased as the two figures became more opaque.
"...necessary. I'm not being crazy, Nathan. Please. I don't have any time, they don't have any time, and..." Girard looked down. "I believe in you enough to know I'll be fine." He stood and placed the core in the Extractor's cradle, locking it in.
The present-time Nathan walked around the scene, standing next to Wheatley at the foot of the machine. Wheatley had devoted his time to examining the non-formal attire.
"We can go get the volunt-"
"They're already down on the testing tracks, Nate. I checked. I double checked. We can't get to them. Craig called it big time. She knew our moves, and she acted pretty fast."
The memory-Nathan's face curled into a grimace. "GLaDOS left us with other options, Girard. You don't have to do this."
"But...but what about you? What about me?" A light bulb clicked on in Girard's mind. "I volunteer myself to be the Genetic Profile for this device I helped you make. As the programmer of its extensive stellar chart program, I feel that I would make the best Genetic Profile candidate to use it to its fullest extent for its distraction purposes." He grinned widely, knowing he had Nathan in a corner.
"We'd be one man short for our project."
"I'm the one who got us volunteers, and they're as good as gone now anyways, man. I kept most people thinking we were doing something else entirely, which you wanted. And I mapped out the entire known galaxy for my core - my personal core that you assigned me! - to use as its method of distraction. So I've done everything I needed to do for this project. The least I can do is replace one of the volunteers we lost."
"...You should have taken your medication more often."
"I'm only on half my dose. There was only one pill left; I had more, but I suspect Iggy's mellowness indicates what happened to the rest of them."
"...Richard was supposed to keep that miserable reptile locked up after regular working hours."
"That iguana's his baby."
"We put children in the appropriate children's wing."
A moment of quiet awkwardness stood between them before Girard spoke up.
"Nate, I know everything's gonna be okay, okay?" He rested his hand on Nathan's shoulder. "I wouldn't insist on this if I didn't think you had everything under control and that you wouldn't let anything bad happen to me."
Both Nathan's cheeks and nose blushed slightly at the statement. Wheatley sighed and walked to the present Nathan, wrapping his arms around him as best as he could.
"I...I guess...flattery gets you to some places..." He nervously scratched the back of his neck. "Fine. Fine, I..." Nathan sighed. "I'll do it. I really don't want to...but your argument is indisputable, at best. I...I just worry that this newer model isn't as reliable as the model in Henry's hub..."
Girard grabbed Nathan's arm. "It will be fine. Mother Selene wills it to be so." He gave a warm smile to the sniffling Nathan.
Nathan gave Girard an incredulous look. "You and your Mother Selene..."
"Do you mind if I give a little prayer to her while you set everything up?"
"Quietly."
Girard smiled and shifted on the body outline in the Extractor's main table, folding his hands around the silver charm as Nathan began placing nodules around the base of his neck and all along the left side of his head and forehead.
"You're going to want to just...close your eyes and relax...when I turn the machine on, okay?"
His hands were shaking, and Girard noticed. He grabbed a hand and pulled it closer to the charm.
"You should do a little prayer, too, Nate. I...I know you don't like praying for things, but...well, think of it as a good luck thing."
"...Alright."
"I'll say it for us, okay?"
"...Alright..." Nathan set the nodule down and wrapped his free hand around both his and Girard's as best as he could. Girard grinned, amused at the pure awkwardness of Nathan's utter lack of knowledge of what to do.
"Okay. Ready?"
"Just...do it."
Girard nodded. "Oh, Mother Selene, in your everlasting wisdom, grant dear Nathan the knowledge and courage to move forwards with his grand plan to disable the maniacal machine that has tried to destroy us all on numerous occasions..."
His words began to trail off as the images of the two faded into the aether.
Nathan collapsed to the floor, shaking.
"I shouldn't have done it. Little idiot believed in me with his stupid religious garbage…for what? For me to just get us frozen, our brains hacked up by some vengeful backstabber, and eventually launched out into space by the design of the very thing we tried so hard to destroy?
"Why did I let him do it? Couldn't he see how important he was around here? I couldn't take it without him here!"
Wheatley watched the little flickers of images dancing about the room; shadows of memories that clearly haunted him.
To the right, the console's monitor shone brightly, Richard sitting and grinning with a large green iguana perched on his head. Nathan slowly creeping up behind him, keeping silent before lunging forwards. The reptile leapt for its life as Nathan slipped a rag from his right pocket, wrapping his left arm around Richard's throat and heaving him to the floor. The collision broke the image apart like glass, the monitor's light shorting out.
"I couldn't let them go! They'd be taken away from me if I hadn't! I knew that's what it would come down to…"
The workstation behind them, set nearly dead center in the room, lit up and drew Wheatley's attention. A large pile of ghastly textbooks populated the top of the desk, Craig's head peering up from somewhere in the middle to gaze upon the crazed-looking Nathan's fervent stare. Craig looked behind him, at the Extractor, defeat filling his visage as he got up. The image of Nathan behind the desk looked rather elated, madness twisting what would have been a cheery smile into a sadistic grin. The pair quickly dissipated as Nathan curled up, resting his head against the core.
"I had to go down with the ship. I was so alone…all of my friends, my only friends that I had ever had…I wasn't even a good enough friend to admit it. I couldn't…especially not to Girard. Oh God, how pathetic am I to have to actually verbalize that to make it actually sink in how absolutely alone I was, even when there were still employees here…? Was it not enough to have my boss tear you apart and rebuild you in his grand stupidity?"
Wheatley could feel his anguish seeping through him, burning through every circuit that had yet to be burned up by the Harpoon.
"Nathan, please calm down. We don't…augh…" He winced, clutching his head. "Nathan… Nathan, please…"
Nathan's head shot up, and as he quickly moved, his leg connected with the core's light switch, turning the floodlight on while aimed at his face.
His scream pierced the air as he flailed, clutching his face. "Bloody…augh!" He sent the core shell flying, curling up in a fetal position. "You right bloody minge! The hell? Ugh…"
Wheatley flinched and turned towards Nathan, who was becoming less stressed out and more annoyed by the second. It was enough to knock him out of his overload and gave him a chance to react. "You alright?"
"Bloody light tried to sear my eyes out!" Nathan shouted, rubbing his eyes profusely.
"Well, the light is terribly bright. Perhaps you should put in a new switch that's not so sensitive to movement…?"
"Yeah. Sounds good. I'm…I'm just going to lie here and recover a bit."
"Please do. That was terribly close to a meltdown. Too close."
"…I'm sorry…"
"You have a reason to be upset, from the looks of it. Just…don't be so hard on yourself. You made a mistake. I've made a ton of them myself. Nothing to blame yourself over. Nobody could have seen this all happening to us, not even Doug and all of his wisdom."
"…S'pose you're right…" Nathan sighed deeply as he slowly calmed down.
"…You think I'm right?"
"Maybe."
"About time I was right about something."
"You've been on par for a lot of things thus far. Don't let your former programming make you sell yourself short, mate."
Wheatley smiled.
"Right. I'll try"
Wheatley looked around as Nathan continued wallowing in agony and muttering obscenities. Feeling less agonized, he took the time to examine the lab a bit. The desk settings that had been illuminated by the panic-induced memories seemed interesting to study.
The desk behind him was still the resting place of several books, now layered in dirt and grime. Wiping off the covers slightly revealed a pile of strange trivia books and record collections. The desk contained numerous zip disks with OS types and stopwatch times written on their note panel. Cocking an eyebrow in interest, he decided to merely set a few of the OS's he recognized to the side to collect later.
He shuffled over to Rick's desk, finding the dusty animal cage slightly disconcerting. Inspecting the drawers, he found slews of old floppy disks with the names of what Nathan's subconscious identified as 'video games,' whatever those were.
"Pitfall" sounded terribly dangerous, "Prince of Persia" sounded dull, and "Asteroids" sounded like something that belonged at Girard's desk.
Speaking of which...
He set the floppy disks down and made his way over to Girard's desk. He softly ran his hands over the designs of all the stars, admiring the craftsmanship.
Examining the desk caused a massive spill of papers from the top drawer. He compiled them and looked them over; they were all labeled with odd dates, about a month's time in length. It looked remotely like the night sky drawn into different positions on each paper with little notes upon each star; Nathan's intervention provided the information that they were all star charts listed by astrological signs for their current position of longitude and latitude.
Wheatley grinned; despite the lack of a proper internal clock, he could easily decipher the time of the year with them once they got outside! There were disks with various strange symbols and dates matching the papers inside the drawer; he took both sets and folded them up neatly, collecting them and the other disks and piling them into the bag.
It was starting to get too full; there was clearly no room for his core inside, and it was likely going to be too heavy to carry soon.
He lifted the bag and tested the weight; it wasn't too heavy, and the weight of the portal gun would surely offset it.
He then sighed and walked over to Nathan's desk, noting the picture frame almost immediately. Gingerly lifting it, pieces of broken glass tinkling out of the frame as he did so, he found a picture of the four of them, standing up against a wall.
Girard stood to the far left, smiling widely and looking as perky and cheerful as usual. Nathan stood next the him, his arms crossed and a stern look on his face; the same one he had in his ID photo. Craig stood to Nathan's left, hands folded rather politely in front of him, his almost comically large glasses nearly dwarfing his face. To the far right was Rick, giving an almost perfect 'come hither' look with his arms akimbo.
"What a bunch of odd humans you all are." Wheatley joked.
"We are, aren't we…? One big dysfunctional group…" Nathan muttered, getting up.
The largest workstation table lit up, and Wheatley quickly looked over to catch the sight of the ghastly quartet materializing.
"Alright, what's this project about, Spurling? Dad won't tell me anything, but he says I'm perfect for it."
Rick stared down at the wide assortment of optic lenses, in all their various colors and designs, brushing away from his line of sight was the tail of his dear pet green iguana, perched upon his head.
"First off, Richard, you shall address me as 'Sir' or 'Boss'. Secondly, this project's purpose is entirely between the four of us. I requested that your father send me a programmer.; I assume that's what he's sent you to me for. You do know how to program things, I assume?"
"That's one of my things, yeah. What's Scribbles McGee here bringing?"
Girard looked up from his notebook, confused.
"I requested an intern to join us for specific purposes that are not of your concern at the moment."
Craig gently picked up one of the optic lenses. "I take it we are continuing the usage of the Personality Core designs you worked on with Mr. Jameson."
"Indeed. Finally, intelligent queries."
"No such thing as a stupid question, just uninformed ones," Girard muttered as he continued scribbling in his notebook.
"You alright, Girard?" Nathan asked, giving a mildly worried look.
"New dosage." His voice was flat and disinterested. "Got me locked down…"
"You just sit there and take notes, then."
"Yes, sir."
"Alright then, where was I? Oh! Right then. This project involves creating a 4-set of a brand new Personality Core set, and no matter our role, how big or small, we shall all be responsible for the personality matrix of one individual Core.
"This Core shall be your lifeblood. You will spend all of your spare time working to perfect this Core. This is your child, essentially, and you are responsible for every aspect of it. This Core's very persona, however, must be based upon something that can rapidly distribute a highly distracting and/or disturbing themed topic.
The sole purpose of these Cores' personality traits will be, like many of the other Cores that have been built, to lock GLaDOS up. However…there's a second part to them which I will explain once we start personalizing them."
He waved his hand over the set of optic lenses.
"Choose which one you like. Just…pick it up by the edges, please."
Rick knelt down and the iguana turned its attention to all the bright colors.
"So Iggy, which one do you like? I like this green one here…"
He picked up a dark green lens with a boxy design and a rectangular iris.
"You like it?"
The iguana focused its gaze on the lens and followed it about as Rick moved it.
"I think Iggy and I will pick this one."
"Wonderful." Nathan deadpanned his voice as he gently grabbed the lens from Rick's grasp.
Craig looked over the set and picked up a circularly designed magenta lens, holding it up to the light and musing.
"I can appreciate a highly detailed work…such precision in every bit…did you make these yourself, sir?"
"I did indeed. Glasswork is not something I'm formally educated in, but I spent a bit of my youth building various things in shop classes for profit…glasswork, ornamenting, even made my sister a lovely gold leaf-plated music box, I did." Nathan sighed deeply, a look of something between sorrow and self-praise crossing his visage as he looked upwards.
"I'm sorry; to answer your question, I did in fact make these myself and I just finished polishing them down, which is why I would like for you all to be very gentle with them."
"You know that one's pink, right?" Rick leaned over and asked Craig.
"Color does not affect my appreciation for the amazing detail etched into this. I am impressed. I will take this one."
"I appreciate the admiring of my hard work. It's all hand-done, you know…"
"Really?" Craig gave a lift of his eyebrows, clearly piqued. "Not machined?"
"Not at all."
"You could make a fortune in artisan glassworking …"
"Science is my calling, unfortunately."
"Alright, just kiss and get it over with." Rick sighed deeply, becoming more agitated by the moment.
Nate flashed a grimace before looking over at the remaining member of the group. "Girard…?"
Girard sat, eyes fixated on a dark yellow lens sitting on the opposite side of the table.
"I would like the one that has the sunburst design, please."
"Which one?"
"That one." Girard pointed it out.
"You like this one?"
"It looks like sunrays…I like it."
Rick shook his head, giving a displeased grunt. He unfolded his arms and set them on his hips, staring up at Nate. "So what about you, cupcake?"
"Well, I…" Nate fumbled, frowning.
"Pick one!"
"Don't rush the boss," Girard sighed.
Nathan spotted the lens in the middle, a bright blue and ever so full optic, and claimed it. He had grown attached to it as he crafted it from the very start, and the thought of it not being his was too much for him. Keeping an aura of calm, and picked it up and smiled.
"There. Done."
"I…don't know what to say…" Wheatley muttered as the image faded. "…I could have never conceived that the scientists who built me ever felt so much about my construction…that I was just built for their amusement. But you honestly, truthfully, wanted to make something special with a purpose…"
He looked back at Nathan.
"Do-do-don't think I…I didn't already know that you built me and actually liked what you built…but there is something that boils warmly to the surface of my consciousness, the comparison you draw…it-it evokes those feelings…"
"Don't think too much of it, Wheatley…"
"But it's a wonderful feeling; I feel wonderful!"
Wheatley leaned over and tightly hugged Nathan, smiling and resting his head on Nathan's shoulder. Wheatley's body might've only been an illusion, but the comfort accompanying the embrace certainly felt genuine.
"Alright…alright now. Stop." Nathan brushed his shoulder off, his hand flying through Wheatley's body.
"My apologies…" Wheatley sat up. "I sense severe exhaustion in you, despite the rest cycle we have only just recently awoken from. Is there a proper resting facility nearby?"
Nathan looked around as he got up.
"This way." He grinned, walking towards a door in the far upper left corner of the room.
The room was small, nearly-bare, and quiet, but Wheatley could have sworn he could hear...that song...
(This is my room. We can sleep in the bed. Not much, but...Wheatley?)
Wheatley's attention was drawn to a strange piano-shaped object in the corner with the desk lamp on it.
(Oh, my harpsichord?)
[I can't stop hearing that song...]
(I played it every night, all night. I'm not surprised...)
[...Why?]
(A few reasons...)
Imagined lights danced at the doorframe and on the harpsichord stool, manifesting into images of Nathan and Girard. At first, Wheatley hadn't realized the man at the door was Girard, as he was dressed entirely in galaxy-printed sleepwear and a nightcap with a dangling star at the end. Finally materializing completely, they began to play out a scene.
"What is it, Morgenstern?" Nathan's voice sounded stern, sending a chill up the younger man's spine and making him quake. The little quilted star at the end of his night cap shook twice as hard as he did.
"S-s-s-sir…I…can't…sleepI'msosorryIdisturbedyou!"
Nathan's shoulders slumped as he took a deep breath and grabbed the bridge of his nose. "My apologies. I…I lost my place in this graph when you came in."
He spun around on his stool, facing Girard.
"Now, why can't you sleep?"
He counted the reasons on his fingers. "Well, Iggy climbs around everywhere because Rick doesn't keep him in his cage, and Rick's tracker tests are loud and noisy because he's programmed it to go through a bunch of video games in the fastest time, and Craig turns over pages and pages and pages when he reads and he slams the hard covers and typing, typing, typing!" Girard clamped his hands over his ears. "Just…I can hear them over my muffs and I'm not sleeping well at all…"
"So what would you have me do? I can't just petition for you to receive your own room; we have too many employees as it is and sleeping room is a premium. The only reason I have my own room is because I'm the head of a program."
"Can…can I sleep in the office?"
"Well if you can handle my harpsichord all night. I'm not going to be sleeping anyway. Between the reports and the cores, I don't have much time to relieve stress, so every second of the day has to get filled somehow.."
"I…I like it. Y-your playing, that is..."
"…You do?" A nervous shift on the bench, a little scratching of the back of his neck…Nathan was clearly flattered.
"That song is really nice. One time, when I was putting in extra hours, I fell asleep listening to it. I didn't wanna say anything and hurt your feelings Boss, but…that song is like, the only thing that really puts me to sleep."
A small smile formed at the corner of Nathan's lips, followed by a soft huff.
"Would you like to hop in the bed while I go back to work?"
"Sir…?"
"It's not getting much use besides being a more comfortable chair."
"You mean it?" Girard's eyes seemed to twinkle. "Thank you, sir!"
"Come off it, now. Go on, crawl in there and sleep before I regret my decision."
"Yes sir!" Girard quickly leapt at the mattress, leaving the bed a mess as Girard kicked off his slippers and nearly wallowed into the sheets.
Nathan cringed and walked over, doing his best to reorganize the squirming mass of sheets around the blond co-worker.
"Now keep quiet, and I'll get back to playing."
"Thank you, sir."
"Please don't mention it." He sighed deeply and plopped back onto his stool, wiggling his fingers in preparation to continue playing.
As the images began to fade, Nathan could do little more than stare, misery filling him.
"Shall we retire, or shall we just stand here with you just staring at your harpsichord until your pass out of exhaustion?"
Nathan glared at Wheatley.
"…Oh. Well…I'm dragging your body to bed. Stare at the thing all you want."
Wheatley crawled into the sheets and curled up as Nathan sat at the foot of the bed.
The song still lingered in his mind, haunting him with the ghost of the man whom he had considered his only friend, standing in the doorway, waiting to rest as well.
The image flickered and faded as Girard made a move towards the bed, and Nathan shuddered. He turned to see that Wheatley was in a sleeping state, and he could feel his body slipping into unconsciousness.
It was terrifying how much Nathan depended on such an apparently faulty machine to keep active and on his feet.
It wasn't his fault that he was so broken though. It was his own. His, and Richard's, and Craig's, and even Girard's.
No, No, if there was one thing he was going to take from Wheatley, it was that the blame was not all theirs alone. It was Henry's and everyone who followed his vengeful madness to their own graves.
And it was GLaDOS's, too. Even in her own twisted and tortured insanity from this place, she had caused enough misery and destruction to have warranted the call to her demise, and the needless destruction that the fruitless efforts had wrought were but the frosting on the cake.
Violence begetting violence. An eye for an eye left everyone dead here…
He had to sleep. Wheatley was primarily offline now, and there was nothing he could really do but think until his body could no longer sustain consciousness on its own. He simply stopped resisting the call of rest, and lied back on the bed with his weary, tired eyes closed. The blackness came swiftly and swallowed him whole.